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District ambulances serve an area stretching from north of Cayucos to the Monterey County line and inland to the ridge of the Santa Lucia Mountains. The district also covers the south end of Big Sur in Monterey County on a contract basis. The entire area is far from any hospital emergency room.

Don Melendy, the district’s administrator, said, “with our extended transport times to the hospital,” some 35 miles away from Cambria, “we’ll have the ability, early on, to make the diagnosis and get the French Hospital cath-lab team in place and ready for us to be part of the activation of that team and get that patient taken care of more quickly is tremendous.”